An Urgent Crisis Now!: Political Prisoners in Syria

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Political Prisoners in Syria: An Urgent Crisis Now!

by Andy Worthington

On
March 16, around 50 demonstrators — including human rights activists,
former political prisoners and the families of curent political
prisoners — were arrested in Damascus
after a non-violent demonstration in which, as part of a group of about
150 protestors in total (a significant gathering in Syria, where all
political dissent is illegal), they called for the release of 21
political prisoners.

Eight of these demonstrators were freed, but 32 were subsequently
charged with “attacking the reputation of the state, provoking racism
and sectarianism and damaging relations between Syrians,” and the
whereabouts of ten others have not been accounted for.

As a result, I thought it might be useful to make available some
information about these 71 men and women, many of whom are well-known
human rights activists in Syria, to raise awarness not only of their
plight, but also that of the estimated 4,500 political prisoners, or
“prisoners of conscience” in Syria.

These prisoners include Kurds, religious leaders, trade unionists and
students, and their detention, in such large numbers, reveals how, for
nearly 50 years, the Ba’athist regime in Syria has suppressed all
dissent through emergency laws passed in 1963, which essentially created
a vast police state, in which an unaccountable security court hands
down punitive sentences on charges that seem to have been taken from the
pages of George Orwell’s 1984, and frequently condemns critics of the regime to torture and abuse in Syria’s many notorious torture prisons.

My findings are published below, although I freely admit that,
despite my best attempts at research, there are gaps in my knowledge,
and I invite anyone with more detailed information to contact me so I
can make it more comprehensive.

At the end of this article, I also provide some names and stories from another report, by Amnesty International,
relating to dozens more prisoners seized by the Syrian security
services between March 8 and 23, in various towns ands cties throughout
Syria.

The 20 political prisoners whose release was called for on March 16, 2011

1. Kamal al-Labwani

A Kurdish doctor and artist, and the founder of the Democratic Liberal Gathering, Kamal al-Labwani
is considered one of the most prominent members of the Syrian
opposition movement, but is imprisoned in Adra prison, near Damascus,
serving a 15-year prison sentence.

On May 10, 2007, he was given a
12-year sentence for “scheming with a foreign country, or communicating
with one with the aim of causing it to attack Syria,” following visits
to Europe and the USA in 2005 “where he met human rights organisations
and government officials and called for peaceful democratic reform in
Syria,” and on April 23, 2008, as Amnesty International explained, the
First Military Court in Damascus found him guilty of “broadcasting false
or exaggerated news which would affect the morale of the country,” and
added another three years’ imprisonment to the 12-year term he was
already serving.

Alarmingly, the new charge “was based on the testimony
of prisoners in the same cell, who claimed he had criticised the
authorities when he returned to his cell from a trial hearing in May
2007.” In March 2009, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention deemed al-Labwani’s imprisonment to be arbitrary, and he is
currently on a hunger strike.

2. Ali al-Abdallah

On
March 13, 2011, a military court sentenced al-Abdallah, a human rights
activist, to 18 months in prison, based on allegations that he made critical comments against Iran,
thereby “harming Syria’s relations with a foreign country.”

An
outspoken member of the “Damascus Declaration” group, al-Abdallah is no
stranger to prison, having previously served a 30-month sentence for his
criticisms of the Syrian government in the group’s 2005 declaration,
signed by around 300 Syrian and Lebanese activists, which called for
Syria’s transition to a democratic nation and improved relations with
Lebanon, including complying with UN resolutions by demarcating the
border, setting up an embassy in Beirut and recognizing Lebanon’s
sovereignty and independence.

Other members of the group to be
imprisoned include former parliamentarian Riyad Sayf, arrested in January 2008, and writer and activist Michel Kilo,
who was arrested after signing the group’s “Damascus Declaration,” and
sentenced to a prison term of three years for “speaking false news,
weakening national feeling and inciting sectarian sentiments.”

3. Mahmoud Barish

A Kurd, he faces a trial for criticizing government corruption, and is currently on a hunger strike in Adra prison.

4. Muhannad al-Hassani

On
July 28, 2009, State Security detained Muhannad al-Hassani (aka
al-Hasani), the Kurdish president of the Syrian Human Rights
Organization (Swasiah), and two days later an investigating judge charged him
with “weakening national sentiment” and “spreading false or exaggerated
information” in connection with his monitoring of the Supreme State
Security Court (SSSC), the exceptional court, with almost no procedural
guarantees, that is responsible for trying and sentencing political
prisoners.

On November 10, 2009, the Syrian Bar Association issued a
decision to permanently disbar him, and on June 23 2010, the SSSC gave him a three-year sentence.

He is currently on a hunger strike in Adra prison.

5. Hassan Saleh

A senior member of the Kurdish Yekiti Party in Syria, Saleh was arrested
on December 26, 2009 with two other senior party members, Ma’rouf Mulla
Ahmed and Muhammad Ahmed Mustafa, and all three were charged
with “aiming at separating part of the Syrian lands” and “joining an
international political or social organization,” apparently after
calling for the Kurdish areas of Syria to be granted autonomy during
their party’s conference on December 3, 2009. They were held
incommunicado for 14 months until February 2011, when they received
their first and only family visit, and they are curently boycotting
their ongoing trials, in part because they are not allowed access to
their legal counsel.

6. Nizar Ristnawi

A member of the Committee to Defend Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights
in Syria and a founding member of the Arab Organization for Human Rights
in Syria, Nizar Ristnawi was arrested in Hamah city on April 18, 2005,
and held in incommunicado detention,
without contact with the outside world including his family and
lawyers, for four months. He was allegedly ill-treated during this
period. In November 2005 he was officially charged and brought to trial
before the Supreme State Security Court, and on November 18, 2006, was
sentenced to four years in prison for “spreading false news that could
weaken the spirit of the nation” and “insulting the President of the
Republic.” In March 2009, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
declared his detention to be arbitrary.

7. Tohama Maarouf

An artist, cyberactivist and mother of two children, she is currently on
a hunger strike in Adra prison, where she is serving a one-year
sentence, in protest at the “inhuman conditions” in which she is held.

8. Anwar Bunni

A
human rights lawyer and activist, Bunni was arrested in May 2006 along
with ten others, including Michel Kilo, after signing the “Damascus
Declaration.”

One of seven young men (between 25 and 34 years of age), who were
detained between January and March 2006 after developing a youth
discussion group and publishing certain articles online that were
critical of the Syrian authorities, Asper (also identified as Maher
Ibrahim) and Tarek Ghorani (see below) were given seven-year sentences
for “taking action or making a written statement that could endanger
the State or harm its relationship with a foreign country” after what
Amnesty International described as “an unfair trial.” The other five men
— Husam Ali Mulhim, Ayham Saqr, Alam Fakhour, Omar Ali al-Abdullah and
Diab Sirieyeh –received five years each, even though all seven
defendants denied the charges and stated that the “confessions” used in
the trial had been extracted under torture. They are held in Saydnaya
Military Prison, near Damascus, where conditions are harsh.

10. Raghda Hassan

On February 10, 2010, Syrian activist and former political prisoner Raghda Hassan (aka al-Hassan) was arrested as she was heading to Lebanon.
The Syrian security services later raided her house in the city of
Tartous, and confiscated her laptop and the draft of an unpublished
novel that she wrote about her life in Syrian prisons. Hassan is married
to a Palestinian and has two children. She was in prison from 1993 to
1995 on charges of belonging to the Communist Party in Syria.

11. Mesh’al al-Tammo

A spokesperson for the Kurdish Future Movement in Syria, he was given a three-and-a-half year sentence
on May 11, 2009 for “weakening national sentiments” and “broadcasting
false information.” He is currently on a hunger strike in Adra prison.

12. Habib al-Saleh

A Kurd, he is currently on a hunger strike in Adra prison.

13. Asaad Hilal

A 61-year-old bookshop owner from Saraqeb in the northwestern Syrian
province of Idleb, Hilal was imprisoned in 1980 because he was a member
of the Muslim Brotherhood. On January 2 this year, he was taken into custody in Idleb
after repeated requests by military intelligence, which had apparently
been investigating his fundraising activities, although his supporters
stated that he had been “raising money for distribution to the needy.”

14. Tarek Ghorani

Like Maher Asper above, Ghorani is one of seven young men (between 25
and 34 years of age), who were detained between January and March 2006
after developing a youth discussion group and publishing certain
articles online that were critical of the Syrian authorities, Asper
(also identified as Maher Ibrahim) and Tarek Ghorani were given seven
year sentences for “taking action or making a written statement that
could endanger the State or harm its relationship with a foreign
country” after what Amnesty International described as “an unfair
trial.”

15. Khaled Massry

16. Osama Haj Sleiman

17. Adan Zeitoun

18. Khalaf Mohamad Hussein

19. Ahmad Mohamed Bakir

20. Ammar Talawi

The 50 political prisoners held as a result of the protest on March 16

The first eight were released on the actual day of the protest, and
32 of the remaining 42 were charged the day after. There has, as yet,
been no mention whatsoever about the whereabouts of the other ten —
including a 10-year old boy — whose arrests or abductions were also
noted on the day of the protest.

(i) The eight prisoners released

1. Mazen Darwish

Human rights activist, and Director of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM)

2. Tayeb Tizini
69 years old, Tizini is a celebrated author and Professor of Politics at Damascus University

3. Hassiba Abdel-Rahman
Former prisoner of conscience, jailed in 1979, 1986 and 1992 for having
belonged to the “Labor Party of Syria” and for meeting members of
Amnesty International

7. Nahed Badawiya
Badawiya, a former prisoner of conscience, was detained by the Syrian authorities
in May 2005 as a member of the Jamal al-Atassi Forum, a political
discussion group, after one of the Forum members, Ali al-Abdallah (see
above), read a statement by the exiled leader of the Muslim Brotherhood,
banned in Syria, which called for political reform. She was also
threatened with the expulsion of her husband, Salama Kayla, a
Palestinian journalist, and a prisoner of conscience from 1992 to 2000,
imprisoned on charges of “opposing the objectives of the revolution,”
who has lived in Syria for 25 years. In June 2005, the Political
Security department reportedly gave instructions at all Syrian border
points to deny Kayla re-entry to the country so that he was unable to
travel to France for a yearly check-up for leukaemia at a Paris
hospital.

8. Kamal Cheikho (aka Sheikho)
A Kurdish literature student, blogger and human rights defender who
formerly worked with the Committee for the Defence of Democratic
Liberties and Human Rights in Syria, and subsequently became active in
defending human rights independently, Cheikho is also a former prisoner
of conscience. Imprisoned last summer on charges of “spreading false
information that could debilitate the morale of the nation,” he was released on bail
of 500 Syrian pounds (around $10) on March 3. He vehemently denies the
charges against him and had begun a hunger strike on February 16 in
protest against his detention. His next hearing is scheduled for March
28.

9. Suhair AtassiA
human rights activist, living in Damascus, she runs the Jamal Atassi
Forum group on Facebook, an extension of the banned Jamal Atassi Forum.
The forum calls for political reforms in Syria and the reinstatement of
civil rights and the cancellation of the emergency law that has
suspended constitutional rights since 1963. See here for an excellent interview Al-Jazeera conducted with Atassi last month.

Other prisoners included in an urgent action issued by Amnesty International

On March 23, Amnesty International released an urgent action,
regarding at least 93 people — including five women and at least 12
children under the age of 18, and consisting of school and university
students, journalists, intellectuals and political activists — who were
arrested by the Syrian security forces between March 8 and 23 in Aleppo,
Banias, Damascus, Dera’a, Douma, Hama, Homs, Latakia, Ma’aratan Nu’man
and al-Malkiyah, and whose places of detention are unknown, raising
fears that they, like many of those listed above, are at risk of
torture. This is in spite of the fact that many of those held “are
likely to be prisoners of conscience, held merely for exercising their
legitimate right to freedom of expression and association by peacefully
supporting or taking part in protests.” Amnesty also noted, “The real
number of those arrested is likely to be considerably higher. According
to one Syrian human rights organization, around 300 people had been
arrested in Dera’a [alone] in the five days up to and including 22
March.”

Prisoners listed by Amnesty, excluding those arrested in Damascus on March 16, are as follows:

University students Abdullah Mas’oud, Adham Bittar, Wissam Bdiwi,
Hassan al-Homsi, Shahem al-Yousefi and Manhal Shahni. They were all
arrested on 8 March from their homes in the town of Ma’aratan Nu’man,
apparently for calling for anti- government protests on Facebook.

Seventeen-year-old high school students Azo Sriyoul, Yasser Ibrahim,
Amjad al-Samadi and Ahmed Majed al-Saydawi were all arrested on 11 March
from their high school in Douma, near Damascus, for writing
anti-government slogans on the wall.

Marwa al-Ghemyan, a 17-year-old female student, was one of a group of
at least 11 people who were arrested on 15 March for taking part in a
small peaceful demonstration that was held in Damascus.

Nasr Sa’id was arrested on 16 March when he responded to a summons
from the State Security branch in the coastal city of Latakia,
apparently for distributing brochures calling for democratic change.

Hussein Mustafa Ali, aged 25, is suspected to have been arrested on
18 March possibly for taking part in a protest that was held in the
Umayyad Mosque in Damascus that day. According to his family, they have
not heard from him since that day and his mobile is turned off. They
did, however, see a glimpse of him on one of the protest videos posted
on YouTube. As far as Amnesty International is aware at least 10 other
men were also arrested that day from the Umayyad Mosque.

Issa Masalmeh was arrested from his home in Dera’a on 21 March. He is
a leading member of an unauthorized opposition party, the Arab
Socialist Union.

Mus’ab Sheikh Amin, aged 14, Rafe’ Abu Ghaloun, aged 16, ‘Abdullah
Amin, aged 17, and Saleh Abu Ghaloun, aged 18, were all arrested on 22
March by Military Security in the northern city of Aleppo apparently for
attempting to demonstrate in support of the protests in Dera’a.
According to Mus’ab Sheikh Amin’s family, when they saw him with
Military Security officers who brought him to his home to search it, his
hands and legs were badly injured and his clothes were bloodied.
Reportedly, the families of the four were thrown out of the Military
Security branch in Aleppo when they attempted to ask for the whereabouts
of their sons.

Lo’ay Hussein, a writer and journalist, was arrested from his home
near Damascus on 22 March apparently for publishing on the internet a
petition in solidarity with protestors in Dera’a and calling for the
Syrian people’s right to peacefully expressing their opinions.

To write to the Syrian government demanding the release of all
political prisoners, including all those named in this article, please
use the addresses and contact details below: